What? A show with the Hardy Boys AND Nancy Drew?!!?

Before Jane Austen there was Nancy Drew.


My parents would take us to a used book store where we would spend hours browsing (my father in the Westerns, which tells you how long ago this was). My mother would find a new Nancy Drew mystery for me, and then when I was old enough I would search the shelves for myself. I also devoured books from other mystery series, such as The Happy Hollisters, The Bobbsey Twins (yep!), and Trixie Belden. Trixie solved mysteries and rode horses. What more could any young girl want? And of course, there were always the Black Stallion books.

When I ran out of reading material, I would "borrow" my brother's Hardy Boys mysteries. He wasn't reading them anyway.

So imagine my surprise while shopping with a friend a couple of weeks ago, as I rounded the end of an aisle and saw, out of the corner of my eye, a boxed set of the second season of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Wowza!





Evidently, sometime in the Seventies, a miraculous TV series brought to life these childhood friends for an hour each week.




Who knew?









Although the stars of the series were supposedly teen idols at the time of the series, the only name I recognized was Shaun Cassidy. I told my shopping companion that I was pretty sure my older sister had him or the other Cassidy plastered all over her walls when she was a teenager. How could I resist a series featuring both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew?

So I splurged. I watched the first few episodes that night. It's awesome, and cheesy, and totally Seventies. The first two episodes they all went to Transylvania for a music festival, which seemed to have an audience of about 20 people. They then proceeded to travel to places such as Las Vegas, Hawaii, Egypt, Kenya, Acapulco, New Orleans, haunted houses, and secret government bunkers at the top of mountains.

Along the way I saw a VERY young Melanie Griffith and Kim Cattrall.  It took me a while to figure out it was Kim- I kept saying to Lars that I recognized the way she was talking and finally I was all, "OMG! It's Samantha!"

 My favorite casting (maybe of all time!) was Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew. I knew as soon as I

saw her that she was the definitive Nancy Drew, much like Linda Carter will always be Wonder Woman. I never bought the actor who played Nancy Drew in the movie a few years back (sorry,

 Emma Roberts). She just wasn't substantial enough. Pamela, on the other hand, was perfect. So imagine my shock and dismay when, in the last couple of episodes of this second season, Nancy was played by someone else, who was just completely wrong. I looked up the series, and turns out the Hardy Boys episodes were doing better in the ratings than the Nancy Drew episodes to the point where Pamela had to leave the show (not enough work, maybe?). She also was on Dynasty, but since I never had the misfortune to watch it, I can now think of her as Nancy Drew.

http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/20415/the-hardy-boysnancy-drew-mysteries

During the Hawaii episode, Frank Hardy falls hard for a singing windsurfer whose life is in danger. She seemed familiar, yet I was sure I hadn't seen her in anything else. When I researched the actor, Tara Buckman, I found this blog, written by someone who is a HUGE fan:

http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/fondly-remembering-tara-buckman.html

Turns out Tara was one of the last contract actors for Hollywood. Back in the day, Hollywood studios would have actors under contract for a certain number of years, and might loan them out to other studios for projects, etc.  This is obviously no longer done, and Tara was one of the last.

Anyway, for the third season Nancy was eliminated from the show altogether, and after a couple of episodes in the third season the network canceled the show completely, for mystifying network reasons. Evidently the network ratings plummeted for that night of the week after they canceled the show (refer to the denofgeek link above). Networks never learn.





So the only season I need to obtain at this point is the first season, since I'm not sure I want to buy the third season box set for a couple of episodes, no matter how good they might be. Which, I suppose, could be a hint for a Yule/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah (did I cover everyone?) present. It might even fit in a stocking.

Since it's that time of year and everything.